


Carver and the Redeemed Cherub

by Archangel_Beth



Category: In Nomine
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-18
Updated: 2014-03-18
Packaged: 2018-01-16 03:32:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1330336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Archangel_Beth/pseuds/Archangel_Beth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carver is a Malakite of Creation, who doesn't like it when someone's itching his resonance.</p>
<p>(Written as a take on "hazing" in the IPG Redemption section. Slight mention of consensual kink at the very end.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Carver and the Redeemed Cherub

* * *

There are some great view up at the top of the Halls of Creation, and I like to head up there to do some work now and then.

Today, in my chosen spot, there's a Cherub. Normally, I wouldn't bat an eye -- even though I've never seen this particular _felis domesticus_ before -- but he's all hunched and... well, sulking, looks like. Doesn't look like a healthy Cherub.

I've only got one resonance, so that's what I use.

And I get dishonor back.

Things he could have done, should have done, and waited too long to do. Things he should have said.

Angels' honor, I'll say that for him, but he's acting more like a Djinn and he knows it.

So I poke him with my stick.

It's a little stick, less than a meter long. Thin. Not a hard poke, either.

He hunches up and tries to ignore it. _That's_ not good.

I poke him again. Poke. Poke. Poke-poke. "You're sulking." Poke. "Quit."

"What do you _want_?" he snaps, finally looking over his shoulder at me. Then his eyes go wide and he hunkers down like a scared kitten. It's probably my black wings, and that puts him into the list of "dysfunctional redeemed." Last time I saw one of those this close, I was a new fledge. Time before that, I was a reliever.

"Told you what I wanted," I say, with another poke. Just his side, not his wings. Wings are sensitive. "You're sulking. Quit it." When he just cowers, I poke him again. "And you're in my spot."

"You don't own it," he says, in the crabby, unstable way of someone who's being poked and doesn't know how to deal with it.

"Nope," I agree, and poke him again to see what he does. "But I meant to come up here, work in my stick a little, and now there's a Cherub moping here."

He shuffles back a little, toward the edge.

"Don'tcha have any friends?" I ask, which he will hopefully take as a suggestion to go find them.

Instead, he flinches his head down into his shoulders, then turns and jumps.

I fall on my stomach making sure that he's not taking the Halls' suggestion of local gravity too seriously, but no, he's got his wings spread and he's gliding down, safe as a blessed church-mouse in the Savannah. While he does a feral-cat creep into the Halls, I whistle up some relievers and describe the mopey Cherub to them. "Couple of you find him and make sure that he's not moping all alone, 'kay? The others, go find his friends if you can and tell 'em where he is. Right?"

Hide and seek, search and find -- relievers love those games.

I sit down on my spot -- now that there's no mopey Cherub there -- and start working on the stick.

****

Thing about mopey Cherubim is that if you keep your eyes open, you can find 'em just about anywhere. Even one of our lounges.

Poke. Poke. Poke. "Mooooooooping. You're going to turn into a slug-Cherub, you keep this up."

Another Cherub stomps up, this one all long-legged cheetah with fire in her eyes. "What. The. _********_. Do. You. Think. You're. Doing?"

I blink. "What's with the Helltongue? You picking up bad habits from the mope here?"

She lashes out a paw and slaps the stick. I return it to the quiver on my back before she breaks it. I've got plans for that stick. "Stop _poking_ him!"

"Tell him to stop acting like a _Djinn!_ You know what I am!"

"An unfeeling idiot?"

I have a strong feeling she's attuned. "I'm a Malakite with a stick. I see dishonor, I poke dishonor. Simple pastimes for simple minds."

"He's not dishonor! He's just confused!"

Quietly, with the sort of dangerous voice that carries, I tell them both, "He knows what he's doing wrong. It's his choice to make."

Then I spin on my heel and stalk out.

****

Do admit, I wish he'd find sulking spots that didn't cross my path quite so often. I _like_ this little cafe of Trade's.

Poke. Poke.

"Why are you _doing_ this?" he demands.

"I don't like Djinn." Poke.

"I'm not a Djinn!"

"So _act_ like it! Hiding from your friend, hiding from everything you've done -- that's Djinn-behavior. If you're a Cherub, act like a Cherub. Find something to protect!" This stick makes great punctuation. _Poke_ poke poke _poke_.

"I'm not your enemy!" he protests, clearly not getting the point.

I try poking him with it again. "You're not my friend, either. Shape up."

The proprietor shows up then and suggests that I leave instead of causing a scene.

Drat. I liked that cafe. Maybe I can make something later so they'll forgive me.

****

The stick's got all kinds of stripes on it now, curls and whorls and patterns like vines. It's a work of art. I've even started enchanting it, and I'm looking for some cinnamon in the kitchens.

Poke. Poke. Poke.

He's a little bigger now, got a Force back or something, and he slaps his paws down on the table and I can tell from his whiskers that his teeth are bared. Biggest tom-cat I ever saw.

Poke. Most of the people noticing this aren't doing anything till they see what's going on. Malakite resonance isn't sneered at, so they figure I must have a reason. And I do.

Another Malakite grabs my stick. "Dammit, Carver, are you being annoying _again_?"

"Hey, sis, how's it going?" I'm not worried she'd break it. She really is my sister, same Force-mother and everything.

"A lot better before you started in."

"He's gotta be bugging you, too." Less, I have to admit, than when I first saw him -- but Maker's miracles, he's got bad habits like a real cat'd have fleas.

"There are better ways to help people than _poking them with a stick_."

"You shape people your way, Kath, and I'll poke people mine."

"He's got his Choir Attunement now, without your stick-poking help when he could have used it downside. Why don't you take your stick and pretend to be a Sword Servitor and _shove it-_ "

"I'm goin'." I back-pedal.

****

I don't see much of the mopester for a while, just glimpses when he's avoiding me, but I keep carrying the stick around and working on it anyway.

It's no surprise I have it when there's a big commotion, that Dad's just given Abracadabra to some kitty-redeemed.

We love parties at Creation. We really do. Having a small, private one is out of the question once the relievers get the news.

It's the Cherub I thought it'd be. Good thing I've had the stick all finished for a while.

So I saunter up to him, stick twirling in my fingers like a baton or a dancer's cane. He lays his ears back at me, and has his mouth almost open to say something.

But hey, my reading's nothing but the good stuff. I snap the stick out, along my forearm, with the handle pointed toward him. "Yours," I say before he can yell at me to get out.

His jaw drops. "Wha-?"

"It's yours. C'mon, take it."

From the way he nearly snatches it, he probably figures I'd poke him with it if he didn't. I wouldn't have bet against it, either. "Why?" he asks, suspiciously.

"I'm not done with 'what' yet," I say. "It's not much, just carved and all. Won't break corporeally, though it may bend alarmingly. Oughta be able to summon it in and out of vessel-space with a little Essence, but you can get someone to do the enchantment work to enhance it if you want. And you can use it to figure out where I am so you don't have to worry about dodging me so much." I grin.

He's looking between me and it and running his paw-pads along the length of it to feel the carvings I've made. "All right... _Why?_ Why are you _here_?"

I shrug. "Why not? I like Cherubim. Besides, I gave you a hard time. I figure you should have a chance to retaliate."

While he's digesting that, Kathriel shows up and leans on my shoulder. "Carver, are you inviting him to take you back to your room, tie you up, and cane you?"

"Hadn't got to the tying-up ideas," I admit, grinning back at her while the Cherub's jaw drops open again.

He gets his voice back. "Is she _serious_?"

Kath nods. I stick my hands in my pockets, look at the ceiling, and say, "Seriously annoying, coooooould be..."

The Cherub takes his new stick, and pokes me in the shoulder with it.

By the end of the party, he's chased me around the room with it five times, and Kath's taking bets on whether or not he'll catch me before the seventh or eighth lap. I had bets on ninth, but if I keep laughing like this, I dunno if I'm going to even finish six.


End file.
